Fervent LGBTQphobic and racist, Bolsonaro targeted LGBTQ and Aboriginal individuals from its first day as President of Brazil.

As far as our community is concerned, he has removed LGBTQ concerns from the Ministry of Human Rights and appointed Damares Alves as human rights minister.

Alves is an ultraconservative evangelical pastor who is an ultraconservative evangelical pastor who claims diversity policies have “threatened” the Brazilian family, AP noted.

“Girls will be princesses and boys will be princes,” Alves said of the new administration. “There will be no more ideological indoctrination of children and teenagers in Brazil.”

According to a report from the Folha newspaper, Bolsonaro is also expected to announce the closure of an agency with the Education Ministry that promotes diversity in public schools and universities.

Brazil’s new president Jair Bolsonaro began his term of office by delivering a message of hate, a habit already taken during the presidential campaign.

]]>info@lezbelib.com (E-Li)News From Asia, Africa, Oceania, South America And CanadaMon, 21 Jan 2019 00:59:10 +0000Roncalli Catholic High School asks a lesbian counselor to dissolve her marriage if she wants to keep her jobhttps://www.lezbelib.com/us-news/roncalli-catholic-high-school-asks-a-lesbian-counselor-to-dissolve-her-marriage-if-she-wants-to-keep-her-job
https://www.lezbelib.com/us-news/roncalli-catholic-high-school-asks-a-lesbian-counselor-to-dissolve-her-marriage-if-she-wants-to-keep-her-job

Roncalli Catholic High School in Indianapolis, Indiana asked one of her lesbian employees to dissolve her marriage or resign.

Shelly Fitzgerald has been working for 15 years in the Roncalli Catholic High School. Recently, school officials discovered that she was married to a woman and threatened her unless she decided to dissolve her marriage. (???)

In a Facebook post, Fitzgerald explains that officials gave her four options:

either she resigns

she dissolves her marriage

she may be fired if she doesn't do it

or her contract won't be renewed

"I think their hand was forced and I’m sorry that they’re in this position. They said that either I could resign, that I could dissolve my marriage," Fitzgerald wrote.

"I told them, you know, I’ve been quiet for 15 years [working at the school] so why is this different? I mean I’ve hidden everything from social media. I’ve hidden from people I love because I knew I was at risk for losing my job over this. . . I have no intention of resigning. I have no intention of being quiet. And I didn’t need the counsel that they were offering from priests. My goal, my intent is just to be a catalyst for change. That’s it. . .

"There’s a piece of me that is shameful for the message that I’ve taught my daughter in the last 15 years that this is OK to stay quiet to keep a job. But I will tell you the lesson she has seen in this now is one of incredible love.'"

Students, parents, and advocacy groups support Councilor Fitzgerald.

“We can’t bash Roncalli in this situation. Roncalli is not to be blamed for this decision. It’s the Archdiocese,” Junior Madison Aldrich said. “Unfortunately, Roncalli is taking the blame for it. And the name is being trashed and slandered. And that’s not what we want. Roncalli is a special place, and Fitzgerald is a special woman.”

Fitzgerald commented on all this support: "It’s completely overwhelming. Humbling. . . I have never been so proud of our students and faculty and staff and parents and people I don’t even know who’ve reached out to me because it’s important," she said.

"This is exactly what we’ve taught them to do. Use your voice for good and stay positive. Be kind to one another. And trust that God will put the right words in our mouth and at the end of the day, pray for both sides because I know this isn’t easy for the people at Roncalli or at the Archdiocese as well. Roncalli is a great, loving place. I only want to make Roncalli a better place, truly."

Since last year, there is an anti-discrimination law in employment based on sexual orientation in Indiana and there is also an anti-discrimination ordinance in Indianapolis, but Indianapolis Municipal Code protects schools, charitable or religious institutions run by or affiliated with a church.

Nevertheless, Fitzgerald is now considering her options with a lawyer.

]]>info@lezbelib.com (E-Li)News From The United-StatesFri, 24 Aug 2018 22:46:20 +0000Ontario LGBTQ+ children mobilize in support of the LGBT inclusive sex education programhttps://www.lezbelib.com/asia-africa-etc-news/ontario-s-lgbtq-children-mobilize-in-support-of-the-lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-program
https://www.lezbelib.com/asia-africa-etc-news/ontario-s-lgbtq-children-mobilize-in-support-of-the-lgbt-inclusive-sex-education-program

Several families have launched a lawsuit against the regional government, which wants the LGBT-inclusive sex education program to be replaced by a non-inclusive one.

But Doug Ford, Ontario Prime Minister, ended the program in July. This is a campaign promise made to anti-LGBT conservatives.

Ontario Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson, said the new regional government plans to reinstate the 1998 sex and relationship education program. This older version is not LGBT-inclusive.

"Doug Ford is dragging Ontario backwards," said MP Catherine Fife.

"He is taking our province from bad to worse – and nowhere is that more evident than with his decision to put LGBTQ+ youth at risk by forcing the use of the old, 1998 sex ed curriculum."

But you can count on families and on LGBT children to fight! A 11-year-old transgender girl launched a challenge. She was followed by a whole group of families and their children, generally younger than 13.

They argue that the 1998 program is a violation of the human rights of LGBT students.

Attorney Mika Imai said, “[the change is] going to have a huge impact on, particularly, LGBTQ students. We see that as discriminatory and contrary to the code.”

His colleague Marcus McCann added, “We’ve been in conversation with parents of trans and queer youth, currently in Grades K to 8 … and these families are very concerned about the planned changes.”

“Our belief is that shelving the curriculum is raising red flags from a human rights perspective,” he said.

There is a huge mobilization. The 11-year-old girl comes from rural Ontario and the other families come from Guelph, Toronto, Sudbury and other cities. And other families will join the lawsuit in the coming days as Marcus McCann has announced.

The good news is that already some school boards have said that they will continue to promote LGBT-inclusive education, but will they be able afterward to go against the government?

The government will launch consultations on this issue this fall but it didn't share any details for the moment.

A survey conducted by the Centre for LGBTQ+ Inclusion in Education at Leeds Beckett University reveals that 40% of LGBT teachers have faced bullying in the United Kingdom.

650 teachers and 250 school leaders, who identify as LGBT, participated in a survey of teaching conditions. The results are rather mixed:

40% of teachers indicated that their school didn't promote the inclusion of LGBT staff.

40% have experienced bullying, harassment, discrimination, and prejudice in their careers.

40% are not open about their sexual orientation in their school.

30% reported that their experience as a teacher had a negative impact on their mental health.

Professor and the centre’s leader that conducted the survey, Jonathan Glazzard, said, “I think what concerns me is that we know that being a school leader and a teacher is very stressful anyway, and there are a whole range of issues that can result in mental health issues: workload, lack of work-life balance, and also the challenges of leadership anyway, but then this is another layer on top of that.

“If somebody is actually coping with the stresses of being a teacher or leader and yet they have got another layer to deal with on top of that, that’s really worrying.

“You don’t expect these issues to still be evident within current society.”

Teachers and students in Utah will finally be able to address LGBT issues at school.

It's been a while since I had not talked about it because I had no news. The legal battle began more than a year ago. Equality Utah and three students, Katy Smith-Gish, Josh Greer, and Kaiden Turkel, had filed a complaint against the State Board of Education. The trial resulted in an agreement with the State Board of Education and the Attorney General's office.

Last spring, following the trial, the Utah legislature almost unanimously abrogated the ban which prevented the promotion of homosexuality.

The State Board of Education then sent a letter to schools asking them to make sure "each student in Utah public schools receives a high-quality education free from all manner of discrimination, which can take the form of bullying, based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity."

Utah succeeds California and becomes the second state to repeal the law against the promotion of homosexuality.

The question was whether these institutions covered LGBT issues in relationship and sex education or other parts of the curriculum.

The result is disappointing since 59% of responding schools reported that they did not cover issues of LGBTQ students. Moreover, 19.4% of schools did not even want to answer the question! So only a little over 21% said they were addressing these issues.

Seven out of 10 schools reported that they were not aware of ever having any LGBTQ pupils.

The department said "as the actual number of schools that respond to the survey is relatively large, it is likely to be representative of all schools."

The Council for Curriculum, Examinations, and Assessment had issued guidelines on the importance of teaching students about sexual orientation and gender identity in primary schools.

"Schools should handle the issue of sexual orientation and gender identity in a sensitive, non-confrontational and reassuring way," it recommended.

"In the primary setting, schools can do this very effectively by teaching about the difference in Relationships and Sexuality Education."

"Relationships and sexuality education can help provide a positive view of sexual orientation and gender identity which, in turn, can help raise the self-esteem of young people who may feel different."

Most schools responding to this survey also indicated that they never or rarely heard any derogatory references to same-sex relationships by pupils.

But this survey revealed that 37% of the schools would welcome more training on addressing transphobia in the classroom.

This is good news for the transgender community in Minnesota since the Department of Education has decided to fight bullying of LGBTQ students by approving a new toolkit. This will allow all public and charter schools to welcome non-binary students under the best conditions.

This kit is also a wish of the state to no longer have LGBTQ students being obliged to defend their rights before a court. Schools should be able to protect their students.

OutFront Minnesota launched this toolkit which has received support from over 1,000 parents. It consists of 11 pages which provide many resources and guidance (legal details, good practices like the use of gender neutral pronouns for example).

We welcome Minnesota Department of Education's decision to commit to protecting LGBTQ students, particularly at the present time when the Trump government is targeting, as you know, transgender people. Let's hope that other states follow Minnesota.

]]>info@lezbelib.com (E-Li)News From The United-StatesWed, 09 Aug 2017 16:28:47 +0000The Request To Cancel A Non-Discrimination Policy Voted By The Fairfax County Public Schools Was Rejected By The Judgehttps://www.lezbelib.com/us-news/the-request-to-cancel-a-non-discrimination-policy-voted-by-the-fairfax-county-public-schools-was-rejected-by-the-judge
https://www.lezbelib.com/us-news/the-request-to-cancel-a-non-discrimination-policy-voted-by-the-fairfax-county-public-schools-was-rejected-by-the-judge

In Fairfax County, an organization and a student attempted to overturn a policy of anti-discrimination based on gender identity that was adopted within their school district, but the judge decided otherwise and rejected their request.

Indeed, last December, the Fairfax County Public Schools decided to pass a nondiscrimination ban based on gender identity. Following this, Andrea Lafferty, the head of the Traditional Values Coalition, ​and a student decided to oppose this policy of non-discrimination and brought the case to the Fairfax County Circuit Court. The judge then dismissed their request for trial. Lafferty, however, said to the Washington Post that she would appeal the decision.

But today we unfortunately learned that a powerful Senate committee has actually mixed another bill with this act, and this addition is clearly discriminatory against the LGBT community.

Indeed, this second bill would allow discrimination by all religious institutions to refuse to serve LGBTQ people without government penalty.Defenders of LGBT rights obviously condemn this second bill, considering it dangerous.

Democratic lawmakers also resented this change in the original bill and are concerned about the discrimination that could be sudden by the LGBT community by businesses of the state or other institutions such as schools.

"You have huge companies in this state that have nondiscrimination policies to encourage employees to come to the state," Gerry Weber, an attorney who handles constitutional law cases, said. "This legislation will allow any individual employee who claims a religious basis for discriminating to do so without being subject to the company’s own policy."

As in Florida, this is only the beginning of a long list of exemption bills and therefore laws that can lead to discrimination against our community.In Georgia we also speak of eight bills that will be introduced during the year.

For the moment, no date is scheduled for the vote in the Senate, but we will very closely follow all this and we will keep you informed.